


Scapegoat

by L_awlietxoxx



Category: Mojo - Butterworth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-28
Updated: 2014-01-28
Packaged: 2018-01-10 08:35:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1157468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/L_awlietxoxx/pseuds/L_awlietxoxx





	Scapegoat

The problem with Skinny was, he always put up such a fuss.

It was no wonder he had bad breath, since his gob couldn’t stay shut a goddamn minute. That was, whenever Baby was around.

There were a lot of things Baby couldn’t understand about people, but Skinny was particularly perplexing. Irritating. Infuriating. He was always looking, always gawking, like he wanted the attention. He’d go around the club, clambering in and out of the van in his ripped-off fucking monkey town trousers, and Baby was supposed to just make nice? He was supposed to let Skinny parade around, twitching his head in Baby’s direction and scuffing his Plimms around like the wasn’t the most obvious, annoying little shithead that Baby had to put up with?

Fuck that. Sod it to hell and fuck it sideways. He’d snapped, and that was almost what Baby had done with Skinny kicking and tied to the jukebox in his whitey-tighty pants. Skinny had thought he could cheat?! Thought for a second that he was smart enough to pull a fucking fast one on Baby? Hiding the card in his fucking sock or something? It had been Skinny’s eyes – the tough blues glinting with fiery resistance and challenge that Baby recognized too damn well. Yet another accessory snatched from Baby’s closet, but this one had sent Baby lurching across the table, because this one couldn’t fly no matter how much wind blew – this one wouldn’t fit no matter how much Skinny tried to wriggle his bony, ugly ass into it. Baby wouldn’t let it happen.

Baby had pulled the ropes tight and yelled until his throat felt like it’d had a cigarette put out in it. He’d thrown the weight of the cutlass around, wanting to do nothing but stab and bash until that fucking glare went out of Skinny’s eyes. Baby had screamed and threatened and rammed his hips to fucking bruise, and he’d pulled hair and hissed taunts and licked the expanse of bare neck and murmured dirt-filthy words. 

Afterwards, breathing hard while the air chilled the sweat on his bare torso, Baby felt Skinny furious, humiliated, and it felt so much better. For the briefest moment, Baby utterly betrayed himself with the thrill. Then he couldn’t stop kiss my pegs, KISSMYPEGS so Skinny kept his fucking eyes towards the floor and that look would stay far away.

Then Ezra went out in yesterday’s trash. Then somehow he still had one more funeral bin than he deserved for his stinking shit, and everything else with it that would start smelling something foul.

But then there was Mickey. And just when there were Buicks and toffee apples and scorchers of summer days, there had come “Did I miss the fucking wedding?”

And Baby should have fucking known. He’d never be able to get rid of the stench.

Baby could already see it. The way Skinny was always slinking behind Mickey, glowering at everyone over his shoulder, how Skinny was always tripping over himself, with his fucking annoying “I need to talk to you, Mickey.”

Just how goddamn stupid was he? Watching it unfold like a nightmare in front of him all over again, Baby knew what there was to do. He knew, and he fucking hated it. It hurt him the way there was nothing for, the knowledge chewing at him until he needed the weight, the distraction of the cutlass again – hurling it around and chasing after Skinny again with half-mad yells because he was just so goddamn stupid.

Then it happened - Skinny opened his fucking gob for the last time, with what Baby had deep down known was coming, making him on edge and violent with the fear of it. 

“Mickey’s done nothing. Shut your fucking mouth, Jew.”

“Take your lies somewhere else.”

And Baby’s insides clenched up. There had been the words, but he’d barely heard. He didn’t need to. That fucking look was back blazing in Skinny’s eyes, stronger and hotter than ever, and Baby would recognize it anywhere. The look that had always gotten him a stinging slap across the face or a mouthful of hard, foul-tasting flesh. The muscles of Baby’s arm, his hand, they twitched.

The gunshot was a slug to his head. The derringer burned his hand.

His legs found a chair, needing to give out. Baby sat stiller than stone, stiller than a mountain in the windstorm of panic and fear that had filled the club. Watching Skinny tremble and whimper and bleed on the floor, the tears crawled down Baby’s unmoving face. Skinny would never know, no one would ever know, what Baby had done for him.

Baby must have shut down like he did sometimes, because then the room was empty besides Skinny and his brains and Mickey conked out and still just as fucking useless. And the kid appeared on the steps, with his wispy tear-through shirt and glistening eyes. 

And it had just been so easy. 

“Do you want to go out there?”

And the kid said yes, descending from the stairs with gentle steps. And it was so so easy, for Baby to be on the other end of the twisted, depraved game. Skinny was out of it now, so it didn’t matter anymore what happened. It didn’t matter if Baby was condemned to the fucking flames of hellfire. 

Stepping over Skinny’s brains and Mickey’s greedy hands, Baby led the kid away.


End file.
